LANGER, WILLIAM (1886-1959)

William Langer, governor and senator from
North Dakota, was one of the most colorful
political personalities to come out of the Great
Plains. Langer was born in Everest, Dakota
Territory, on September 30, 1886. He studied
law at the University of North Dakota and
established a practice in Mandan, North Dakota,
in 1916. In 1918 Langer was tapped to be
the Nonpartisan League (NPL) candidate for
attorney general. He broke with the npl and
ran for governor in 1920 as a Republican coalition
candidate but was defeated. In 1932 he
was championed as an npl candidate for governor.
Elected, he ordered moratoriums on
home and farm foreclosures and a grain embargo
on export of the state's wheat (the latter
was ruled unconstitutional). In 1934 he was
convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United
States by arranging for kickbacks to the npl
from state employees on federally funded
projects and removed from office. His conviction
was overturned on appeal, and in 1936 he
again ran successfully for governor. He was
elected U.S. senator in 1940 and served until
1959. During his tenure as senator he was a
champion of farm programs, rural electrification,
health research, and improvements in
social security. He was a humanitarian liberal
ahead of his time, supporting an equal rights
amendment, maternity leave legislation, and
the vote for eighteen-year-olds. He was a
champion of Native Americans, World War II
refugees, and a strong advocate of civil rights
legislation. To much of the Senate he was an
eccentric who tilted at windmills, as exemplified
by his filibuster to deny Earl Warren appointment
to the Supreme Court and his vicious
attacks on Winston Churchill.

In his runs for office, Langer often changed
factional allegiance or ran as an independent.
Langer had no equal in the art of personal
politics: he knew tens of thousands of constituents,
dealt with their problems, and made
them part of his machine. In particular, he
was a master in mobilizing the German and
German Russian voters of the state, who were
critical to his victories, especially in three-way
races. Langer died from heart disease in Washington
DC on November 8, 1959.